Nor was the tyrant long before he put his threats into execution; for on his return to Alexandria, he published a decree, prohibiting all persons from entering his palace who did not sacrifice to the gods of Egypt; and that this might effectually reach the Jews, he, by a second decree, degraded them from the privileges of Macedonians, the original founders of that city, and with which they had been invested by Alexander the Great and Ptolemy Soter. In order to ensure their degradation, he ordered them all to be marked with an ivy leaf, the badge of his god, Bacchus, and that those who refused should be made slaves or put to death. Those, however, who would embrace paganism were to be restored to their privileges; but to the honour of the nation, out of many thousands, only three hundred could be found who would consent to apostatize from the God of Israel. The nonconforming Jews having very properly refused all intercourse with their apostate brethren, Ptolemy resolved to massacre the remnant of this unhappy nation throughout his dominions; in order to which, he ordered all the Jews in Egypt to be brought in chains to Alexandria, when he shut them up in the Hippodrone, with the intention of their being exposed to wild beasts, as a public show. On two successive days, the Egyptian courtiers and fashionables, like the modern Spaniards and Portuguese, were assembled to enjoy the sport, but were disappointed on account of their beastly monarch being saturated with liquor and fast asleep. During all this time, the poor Jews spent their time, like Daniel,† in lifting up their hands and voices, and praying to God for their deliverance; nor did they pray in vain: for he who delivered his prophet from the jaws of the devouring lions, was equally

A large place without the city, where the people used to assemble to see the horse races and other shows. Prid. ii. 140.

+ Dan. vi. 11. x. 2.

able to preserve his faithful servants from the trunks and fury of the Egyptian elephants, to whom, on the third day, they were actually exposed. For these animals, in order to incense their fury, having had wine and frankincense given to them in immense quantities, they lost all guidance, and turned their rage upon the spectators, and destroyed great numbers of them. There were also some supernatural appearances in the air, which so alarmed the vicious monarch and his courtiers, that he ordered all the Jews to be released, and rescinded his decrees against them; and, to make them some amends, granted them many favours and privileges, and, amongst others, liberty to put to death their apostate brethren, which they accordingly did without a single exception.*

* Prid. ii. 138. 141. who takes this relation from Macc. and Jos. At first sight this procedure may appear harsh and severe, and it has not unfrequently been so arraigned by the advocates of a cold and infidel philosophy, of a morbid and insalutary philanthropy. But such persons either forget that the law of Jehovah was positive upon that subject, or else they must consider the commandments of Jehovah entitled to but little respect. Deut. xiii. 6-18. xvii. 2-7.

The three hundred apostates, therefore, had rendered themselves, in every way, liable to the punishment of death. They had violated the command of their Divine Legislator, and their brethren were bound to put them to death, or subject themselves, their wives, and children, to the wrath of God if they did not: and they had committed the greatest possible political offence against their fellow countrymen; for Jehovah had repeatedly shewn to them, that whea his law was broken, he visited the crime upon the nation at large, until the innocent had purged themselves from the offence, by putting to death the offenders. The distinctive peculiarity of the Jews was, that they were the immediate subjects of Jehovah himself; and, therefore, every act of idolatry was an act of rebellion and high treason, against their sovereign Lord and God. And whatever may be thought now, there can be no question that, until the advent of the Messiah, the whole Jewish law and polity was indispensably obligatory upon every descendant of Abraham.

Such, however, were the tyranny and cruelties of Philopater, that at length his own subjects rebelled against him; and it is assumed that the Jews took side with the insurgents, for in the result no less than forty thousand of them were slain.*

The Roman empire, or the fourth or iron kingdom prefigured by the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream,† approximated towards Jewish politics, during the minority of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who was an infant when his father, Ptolemy Philopater, died. Philip,§ king of Macedon, having formed an alliance with Antiochus the Great, for the purpose of despoiling the youthful monarch of his dominions, the friends of that prince, attracted by the martial fame which the Romans had already acquired, applied to the senate to take their ward under their care, and become his guardians.¶ Having complied with this request, the republic sent M. Æmilius Lepidus and others, as ambassadors to the confederated monarchs, threatening them with war if they attempted to injure their protégé.**

Not regarding this menace, Antiochus persisted in his purpose, but was anticipated by the Egyptian general, who possessed himself of Syria, and planted a garrison in the castle at Jerusalem.tt

Antiochus, however, having at length collected his troops, soon repossessed himself of the greatest part of Palestine, and coming to Jerusalem, was readily received by the Jews, the

* Prid. ii. 144. quoting Euseb.

Prid. ii. 148.

+ Dan. ii. 40.

Philip V. son of Demetrius II. He was defeated by the Romans, who reduced Macedon to a Roman province. Prid. ii. 157. Guthrie, iii. 353. Lempriere.

|| Scipio Africanus had just beaten Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, at Zama, in Africa. B. C. 201.

A. U. C. 552.

++ Prid. ii. 153.

priests and elders going out to meet him in a solemn procession, and assisted him to reduce and expel the Egyptian garrison. In return for this (at that crisis, important) service, Antiochus granted the Jews many considerable immunities, and confirmed to them the privilege that no stranger should enter within the Sept or Chel of the temple.*

The Roman army, under the command of Titus Quintus Flaminius, having obtained a decisive victory over Philip at Cynocephalus, in Thessaly,† the war respecting the Egyptian monarch and his territories remained to be decided between the republic and Antiochus.‡

On the death of Simon, the high priest, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Onias the Third.§

Antiochus, although encouraged by the presence and assisted by the counsels of Hannibal, the celebrated Carthaginian general,|| who had been forced to fly from his own country, having been defeated by the Romans in five successive battles, at last sued for peace, upon the terms of paying them

* Prid. ii. 154. Upon one occasion, this monarch selected a chosen band of two thousand Jews from Babylonia, to suppress a dangerous rebellion in Phrygia and Lydia. Prid. ii. 155.

The inveterate hatred, and formidable plans of this wily African, were defeated by the superior address of Publius Villius, the Roman ambassador; who, by affecting great intimacy with Hannibal, and constantly visiting him, roused the suspicions of Antiochus, lest in advising him to carry the war into the plains of Italy, as had been the favourite scheme of the Carthaginian in the Punic wars, he was only practising some fraud in concert with the Romans. Prid. ii. 164.

1. by Acilius Glabrio, at Thermopylæ. 2. by C. Livius, near mount Corycus, in Ionia, in a naval fight. 3. by Æmilius, on the coasts of Pamphylia, in another naval fight. 4. by Æmilius again, in a third naval fight, near Myonnesus, in Ionia. And, 5. finally by Lucius Scipio, in a great battle, near Magnesia, under Sipilis. Prid. ii. 161-170.

fifteen thousand talents,* and granting to them and surrendering up all Asia on that side of mount Taurus.†

Antiochus had contrived to detach the Egyptians from their alliance with the Roman republic, and to marry his daughter, Cleopatra, to the infant monarch, Ptolemy Epiphanes ;‡ and soon after the death of Antiochus, who was assassinated in the temple of Jupiter Belus, in the province of Ptolemais,§ Cleopatra was delivered of a son, afterwards Ptolemy Philometer.||

Amongst the other principal inhabitants of the provinces, who visited the Egyptian court upon that occasion, was Hyrcanus, who was sent by his father, Joseph, to represent him and his office.¶

Hyrcanus took advantage of the confidence thus placed in him, to supersede his father in the receivership of the province, but of which he was deprived after the death of his father, Joseph.**

During the reign of Seleucus Philopater, who succeeded his father Antiochus on the throne of Syria, a schism happened between Simon, a Benjamite, who was governor and protector of the temple at Jerusalem, and Onias, the high priest.tt Seleucus had been a friend to the Jews, and had magnified the temple, by bearing all the costs belonging to the service of the sacrifices at his own expense;‡‡ but upon account of the above dispute, Simon disclosed to Apollonius, the governor of the province, the great riches that were laid up in the temple. Upon the governor making this report to his sovereign, he dispatched his treasurer, Heliodorus, to take possession of the treasure, but was prevented by a miraculous manifestation of divine power.§§

* Prid. ii. 173.; where see a learned note. Prid. ii. 163.

+ Prid. ii. 171.

§ Prid. ii. 174.

** Prid. ii. 180.

|| Prid. ii. 177. ++ Prid. ii. 184.

¶ See p. 359.

2 Macc. iii. 3.

§§ 2 Macc. ii. 3. Prid. ii. 184.